Seeing as I've been getting more and more lazy about updating this thing, more than likely this will be the last entry for 2011. Alot has happened since my last post so I'm not sure if I can put it all down here. Here are some of the highlights. My friend Kevin Turner got sponsored by Quantic Gaming. This was huge news since this was their first time sponsoring a fighting game player. I knew of their group from MLG and their National Championship Call of Duty Black Ops winning team Next Threat. Kevin recently went out to Cali for the SoCal Regionals and had a good showing in his first official event competing under the Quantic Kensou name.

Last week also saw PZ playing host to its first Starcraft 2 tournament. The original bracket was held earlier and drew 64 players, many on the Grand Master level, in an online run preliminary to cut the field down to the top 16. The top 16 played in front of a live audience at the Westchase Marriott hotel and played out on TeSPA's stream site in association with Quantic. I have an interview with the winner of the tournament coming up next week, so be on the lookout for that!

2 weeks ago, the Space Circuit car show was held. I went to go check it out with Kevin and got to see DJ Heavygrinder freezing her butt off while spinning for the crowd. Pretty neat event, just wish the weather cooperated a little more.

Later today, PZ will continue on with their weekly SF4 series of tournaments. But this time they are adding a new wrinkle. Kevin, and a co-host to be named later, will be hosting a live stream show for the weeklies. This is a pretty exciting venture and will definitely help bring some needed exposure for the Houston scene and its players. After the huge success of the UH meet this past Monday, events like this will just keep getting bigger and better.

Keeping with the theme of my monthly blogging, this month I'm covering MLG Providence. This year has been a big learning experience for me. As I've said many times, I don't play FPS games. I'm not sure if its the crazy movement giving me motion sickness, or maybe I'm getting old, but I can't keep up with the gameplay to find it enjoyable. Fighting games are more my style. Well that and certain PC games. I've had lots of friends tell me about DOTA and League of Legends, but I never really paid that much attention to them. Mainly because I was too busy to sit down and play those kind of games. The last time I even touched an MMORPG was Maplestory. After this MLG season, its pretty clear that they want to expand into the PC realm, and I think thats a good move. There are more competitively played games, more sponsors, and much more of a player base to get involved once you start talking about PC games. Look at Starcraft 2. It was kind of like a "Let's try this and see" game last season. This year it eclipsed MLG's favored Halo for most popular.

Next season MLG would really like to have another fighting game. Obviously, the number one game that everybody would love to see on the roster is Street Fighter. But just in case it doesn't make it, there are a number of alternatives that may provide an exciting viewer base that could pick up steam, ala SC2 last year and LoL this year. First up is Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, now if they can't get SF, maybe Capcom would be willing to work with their other big fighting game title. The Marvel fighting game scene is already a huge community in its own right, and could easily bring the hype that SF could. Next I would say is Soul Calibur 5. SC2 was one of the original games on the MLG circuit years ago, and this might be the perfect opportunity to bring it back. Besides, if that means we get to see more of Kayane, thats a win for everybody. In late March, Street Fighter X Tekken comes out, and just in time for next season. It could be a match made in heaven with Tekken and SF crowds. Finally for an off the wall pick is BlazBlue. It flies under the radar a bit under the big boys, but so did its predecessor Guilty Gear. With a market hungry company like Aksys begging for exposure, they just may be the most willing partner to really push a fighting game in MLG.

Lately, I've been on a spending binge. I finally bought a next gen system(my fried Wii doesn't count), a Sony PS3. Those that know me won't be surprised that my first two games I bought were Disgaea 3 and 4. I started up 3, but my friends all seemed to be playing 4 so I went ahead and swapped. Since I've been playing Disgaea 1 for like 7 years, the changes were pretty crazy for me. First off, they seem to have added a few features in the town marketplace. Namely, the skills/evilities instead of automatically leveling to obtain skills(although it appears you can still mentor characters to allow them the option to purchasing certain skills). There's an interesting government/city council feature which is where you pass bills and create characters, but now you can also place evil artifacts and forge relationships in order to improve team up attacks.

Now the reason I spent so much time re-beating and replaying Disgaea 1 was because of the Item World, trying to obtain the top level weapons, defeats the Item God 2's, etc. I've only tried a low level weapon to start, but its definitely changed. At every 5th you get to choose whether you are focusing on leveling the item, or the 'Innocents (aka Residents)' inside your item. Depending on what you choose, you will have a higher occurrence of innocents or mystery rooms. The mystery rooms are pretty fun, and well, mysterious. One might have a choice of treasure chests, others are totally random comedic relief scenes, you never know. Another thing that changed is the power blocks. You can stack blocks on top of each other to gain effects. Tossing a block of the same color adjacently to each other cause them to blow up, and damages anybody who happens to be on top.

So far I'm only up to Chapter 7 and only grinded up to 60 with my main, but I probably won't delve too much into the Item World and power grinding until after my first play through. I think lvl 6-3 with the +100 damage buff really helps power level til 50-100. It looks like 7-1 will be another one since it offers a +100 exp with expanding power tiles. All in all, I'm pleasantly surprised at how much I'm enjoying the game and the changes. I'll be even more happy once I finally unlock Laharl, Etna and the other older Disgaea characters. I noticed on the PSN store that Disgaea 3 has a $50 add-on which has a ton of new characters, maps, and an online vs feature! I'm probably going to get that, and at the same time hope a similar pack comes out for 4. Is anybody else playing Disgaea 3 or 4? What are your thoughts?

So today I'm back at work recovering from a crazy weekend in Orlando, Florida. The past 3 days I was at Major League Gaming's final stop of the regular pro tour at the majestic Gaylord Palms Hotel and Convention Center. This place was crazy, the front of the hotel looks like something out of resort movie! I went to the one in Washington, and that hotel was also ginormous, but this one seemed even crazier. So walking in, you see the lobby, nothing overly spectacular, but then the receptionist hands you this fold out map in order to find your elevator and room. Why do you need a map you ask? So you don't get lost in the Biodome right behind the lobby. Plants, jungles, waterfalls, bridges, and a coffee shop.

But I wasn't flown out there to sight see, I was there to be a ref for Call of Duty: Black Ops. I haven't been at MLG for the past 2 events, so it took a little bit for me to get back into the settings and rules, some of which changed since the last time I worked. Also didn't take long to issue my first Technical foul. Seriously, kids, stop yelling when all you did was get lucky with a grenade. I don't thing there were any real surprises as most of the top seeds advanced without any real break through performances. Apex, a team from England, traveled overseas and made top 16, kudos to them. Halo surprisingly(or not for most) had been moved from the center stage for Starcraft 2. Given the popularity of the Korean players flying in as well the overall hype over the game, its no shock that it usurped the perennial favorite franchise.

Speaking of Starcraft 2, its insane how big the crowds have gotten. They were already the largest gallery at our first event, and now theres no question its totally engulfed the entire staging area. The top players are treated like rock stars, attracting groups of autograph and picture seekers no matter where they go. Now it begs the question, whats next for MLG? CoD is uncertain for next season. Halo has suddenly become a second fiddle. Will they bring back a fighting game? The National Championships loom next month in Rhode Island, then its the long off season as we wait to hear the new developments for 2012.

So now the NFL season is into week 4. Now you find out if your top 3 picks were busts or not, and your random waiver wire pickups became gems. I'm currently in 2 fantasy football leagues, one with my company and one with some old friends. It looks like I'm in good position to win both matchups this week(knock on wood). But that also brings up some thoughts. With all the time and research I spent preparing for the draft in my company league, my team will be at .500 with a win this week. Meanwhile, my other league that was straight auto-picked(didn't set anything so I could have ended up with the dreaded combo of Chris Johnson and Peyton Manning) is sitting on a perfect 4-0 win a win this week.

My thoughts are, is it really that important to sit there and research your picks? Could Molly in accounting really win with picking players from teams with "cat" based names? Thought you got a real steal by getting Jamaal Charles in the 2nd or 3rd round as your #2 back, only to watch in horror as he was carted off with a season ending knee injury? Its pretty crazy how addictive and serious people take Fantasy sports now. I'm relatively new to the genre myself, I started with Fantasy Basketball and Baseball in 2003. But that was for bragging rights and pizza. Now I hear companies have pools setup 14-16 deep. Hearing 2 office ladies in an elevator talking about whether they should be starting Jeremy Maclin vs the 49'ers or Sidney Rice vs the Cowboys was pretty interesting. Definitely wasn't something you would hear 5 or 10 years ago. Now if only that would translate to Street Fighter...

Another month another post, lol! Anyhow, we're like literally days away from one of the biggest gaming weekends in history! Tokyo Game Show is playing host to the Tokyo Jamma Show, and Tougeki's Super Battle Opera. Not only is it the largest gaming expo in the world, but now its added the largest Arcade industry event and the largest arcade fighting game tournament in the world. I have a couple of sources headed there for the festivities since I can't make it, and hopefully they'll be able to dig up some goodies for me to write about.

This past week I actually came out of a semi retirement to play in a couple of tournaments. Planet Zero's SSF4AE weeklies and a PS3 Tetris tournament at Insomnia in North Houston. Scrubbed out a couple wins in SSF4AE, but yeah, I don't really play it at all. Tetris was interesting, I love playing it, but not used to playing it on a controller, especially not on PS3. Took me a few games to get semi used to it, but in the end it came back to bite me in critical moments. No shame in 3rd place, lost to both the champ and runner up. Maybe next time, especially since its like right by my parents house. For those up north that wanted to find anime toys, games, and goodies, but were forced to travel to Planet Anime, or Bedrock comics, Insomia is a nice little place carrying some of the latest toys and figures from Kotobukiya, Kid Robot and other big name brands off 1960 and Mighty Oak in the same shopping center as the eternal Feng Ling restaurant.

This coming weekend, PZ is also holding their monthly Cosplay event. So for fans of cosplay and those who love to cosplay, this is the perfect weekend to break out the outfits ya'll are planning to unveil at Oni-Con next month, or just to dust off the old ones that need to breathe!

Trying to finish up cleaning up my new place before the weekend. Planet Zero is hosting an SBO qualifier for Super Street Fighter 4 AE and BlazBlue CS2. Going to host a post bday/house warming party of sorts afterwards. Hopefully it doesn't get too messy. Last time I threw a house party, cops were involved, and a lot of people redecorated my front yard.

This year MLG seems to have problems with their lineup. Trying to find a good balance between all the games and match the popularity of Starcraft 2. Even Halo Reach is having trouble matching the hype from Blizzard's big creation. After introducing Mortal Kombat 9 into the mix 2 events ago, now comes League of Legends. To be honest, I know nothing about the game. I had to ask some friends what it was. But they seem to be excited about it, and so must all the hardcore LoL players as well. Hopefully it takes off and becomes a full fledged tournament game like SC2.

The NFL season is almost upon us, and that means Fantasy Football time. I'm in 2 leagues currently, one with SRK friends, and one with co-workers. So naturally, we end up watching camp news, latest injuries, and so forth in preparation for our drafts. But why watch pre-season football? I mean, sitting at home is one thing, theres nothing else really on, but actually buying a ticket and going to watch it? I hope the tix were discounted cause I really can't imagine doing that at full price. The starters are out there for all of 1 quarter, if they suit up at all! Watching 3 quarters of bumbling 4th string kick return backups trying to figure out which side of the ball their on is not my idea of premium NFL action. But then again, I guess if you're really starved for football, its better than watching some random school get their butt kicked by some powerhouse school.

For those of you living in a non-gaming cave, the largest Fighting Game gathering in America is taking place this weekend in Las Vegas, Evo2k11. A large number of players from Houston will be going, sadly I won't be able to, not that I'm remotely competitive anymore, but it would have been a fun trip. Why am I not going to attend the biggest convention that holds my interests? I'm moving...

Rather still moving, I've been moving my crap from my old location to the new one for the past week now. Ugh, so tired of shuffling crap that I just want to throw it all away and buy new crap. I finally bought a new microwave, so now I can trash the old cube that couldn't pop popcorn. And my new fridge has an ice maker! For some reason that is the most exciting thing about my new place to me! Sad I know.

Kamikazecon was this past weekend in Houston. In the Galleria Marriott. Basically, across the street from me. Did any of you go? Yeah, me neither. I pretty much forgot it was happening until a friend from out of town popped up all of a sudden and we were like, "What in the world are you doing here?" When he replied that he was here for KKC, I was pretty shocked. Not that I forgot about the con, but because our friend actually traveled out of state for it.

In addition to losing out on seeing UMvC3(not to be confused with UMK3) and SFxT demos, I'll also be missing MLG Anaheim. Ugh, I haven't been to California in.... geez, 5 or 6 years. Sigh, hopefully I'll be finally done settling in with my new place and work, then I can go travel a little bit. Looking at MLG Orlando in August, A-Fest in Sept, and the rest of the MLG season.... Rhode Island! Another state I get to check off my list!

Last night I finally got to watch the last Harry Potter movie. I have to admit that I was not really a big fan of the movie series until later, but the final movie was definitely a must see. Definitely more than Tekken Blood Vengence... I can't really say it was unexpected. Video game movies are kind of expected to flop, so this limited release showing definitely limits it to their target audience. At Edwards MarqE, the showing was literally packed with gamers from Planet Zero, and old school Tekken players. While it did have some nice fighting visuals, and the main characters were modeled well(they had a Xiaoyu shower scene!), it made all the background characters and details look very bad. A friend of mine put it best, this looks like a 2nd rate Final Fantasy movie. The plot was kind of round a bout, much like how the Street Fighter Alpha animated movie was, centering around a movie only character. But the real head scratcher was the main focus being Ling Xiaoyu and Alisa. Unless you're big fans of those 2, you will probably be disappointed since 75% of the cast is not even mentioned in this feature(Lei Wulong barely made it in with on a text message...) Maybe they'll add some extra stuff when its released on Blu-Ray with TTT HD.

So this month is the month where everything in my world is being shifted and moved all over Houston. Over the past week we've been moving everything from my old office to a new(er) one next to Sharpstown Mall. Its strange how ghetto an area can get after just one block. We're on the 19th floor, and I'm not great with heights. Upside is it has a big parking garage, which I ended up using to film a video with Lana. Lord knows when I'll ever have time to finish editing it.

Next weekend Planet Zero is hosting their SBO qualifiers for BlazBlue CS2 and SSF4AE. Should be interesting to see who takes it. The weekend after that is probably one of the busiest in the competitive gaming universe, Evo2k11 and MLG Anaheim are literally happening a state apart at the same time. Players from all over the world are coming for both events, and where will I be? Stuck in Houston working...

Oh well, I finally got into Google +


Music: TVXQ - Keep Your Head Down

So Jemine decided a few days ago that she wanted to make a video for The Nerd Machine. For those that saw my other video with her, that was made in 3 days. I was really hoping to avoid doing that again. Well, when I got to see the video contest webpage and rules... the deadline is... July 3rd. She tweeted me Wednesday, came up with the idea Thursday, recorded the song Friday, shot scenes Friday and Saturday, spent all night editing, and now I'm uploading it... I showed it to Tito, and will upload it to my Facebook acct. Tito said, "Looks good man, even better than the first one." I'm sitting here thinking yeah, I'm getting good at these 2 day shoots... OMG GIVE ME MORE TIME TO DO THIS!!! Anyway, its not perfect by any means, theres a few shots that I really couldn't fix and is pisses me off. I need better camcorders, or lenses, but I don't think this model allows that. Someday, I'm gonna need to upgrade everything, PC's, cameras, lighting eq, etc. Someday. Anyhow, you can watch the video below, or download it from the link below as well.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=A6V6WFDC

Whew this weekend went fast! A-Kon 22 was a blast, got to see a lot of old friends I hadn't seen in a while. Also got to do an interview with the lovely Yaya Han, got to see the upcoming Ninja Gaiden 3, and the latest works by Monty Oum! Never watched Red vs Blue, but Monty showed us an episode he had free reign on, definitely got me hooked! Oh and more Dead Fantasy! You are NOT ready for some of the stuff he's got cooking!

Found some cool new toys for my exploding collection of gashapon figures, this time from To Aru no Railgun and K-On!! I just wish I got my paycheck before the con, then again probably not, I would have used it all up in an instant. I got to see some cool cosplay, that was while I wasn't being trampled or stampeded by the extreme amount of people at the con. I also got to eat In-and-Out for the first time in years! Definitely a fun trip, if you missed A-Kon then shame on ya! There are plenty more cons coming up though, like Anime Expo in 2 weeks. Prob gonna hit A-Fest in Sept, and don't forget Anime Matsuri April 6-8, 2012 at the Woodlands Waterway Marriott!

Music: Muse - Undisclosed Desires

Getting out of work early today cause I'm bout to fly out to Columbus, OH for the 2nd Major League Gaming event of the season. MLG Dallas was interesting since they added CoD:Black Ops, but the turnout wasn't as good as they had expected. Hopefully, attendance perks up this time around. I still like fighting games more than FPS games, but its still fun to watch and spectate, except for that stupid map where they plant bombs and camp all day, then I just wanna shut off the PS3.

Next weekend is Project A-Kon in Dallas. Pretty excited for that too, course I had started making plans before I started a new job. As long as my plans hold, I should be there for most of the con. I'm supposed to be interviewing legendary oosplayer Yaya Han there as well. Should make for an awesome time, so come search me out in Columbus or Dallas if you're going to either event!

Music: Alice Cooper - "School's Out"

Yeah, definitely not as frequent as I wanted to be with this. That's gonna probably be even less frequent now that I started working full time as an IT technician again. The job seems pretty interesting, small company, but spread out in terms of clients. Pretty eventful first week even though it was only 2 days. First day they had me drive from the building in Copperfield to a church in Clear Lake. Immediately getting there and delivering the PC, the power goes out! Good thing I was already out of the elevator, that would have royally sucked. One of the ladies working there called me a delayed Rapture... -_-* So after that I moved on to my next location, Deer Park. I used to work out there a couple of years ago, almost forgot how friggin far it was. Set it up and just went home from there, that was already nearly 100 miles logged.

The next day I go through some minor training and got my own equipment bag. Then the mail server blows up. It didn't help that the AC in the server room died. Had to search and hunt for all available fans I could find, but in the end it didn't help. My manager was stuck calling Microsoft for help on that server. Felt pretty bad about it, but there was nothing that could be done. And then I got my first day off. Course I haven't gotten paid yet, so I'm too broke to celebrate my new job. That'll be in 2 weeks. Meantime, I'm still writing articles on Examiner.com when I get a chance after work, and going to MLG this weekend for their next event. I still want to make some videos, but that will have to be scheduled at night or weekends now.

Music: Durarara!! Op1 - Uragiri no Yuuyake - Theatre Book

So I haven't written anything here in weeks, sorry. I've been working on some side projects and trying to get my stupid car working. This is like the 3 major catastrophe this car has had over the past year! Oh well, over the past week I've been working with my roommate DJ Tito, my friend Buddah and cosplay models Lana Marie, Ichi, and SuWan on a video that I'm submitting to A-Kon 22 for one of their film reels. You can see the finished product below on my Youtube channel.



I definitely feel I had a better grasp on what I wanted to achieve with the video versus my earlier ones. Besides the video frame rate correction, I understand a bit better on look, lighting, positioning, etc. Thanks to John Leigh for giving me tips on some plug ins for Adobe Premiere CS5. This was my first time using color correction, you see it with the girls scenes. I tried to make their scenes appear kind of dreamlike or just in some far off place. Also it helped mask the stupid cars in the background. The guys scenes I couldn't do much. I filmed them in my apt, and there just isn't enough light in there. Live and learn, next time I'll have to find a better location. I also need a mic. One day if I can manage some money I'll finally get one. But anyway, I got emails back from the A-Kon film guy and he liked the video so chances are good that you might see it on the A-Kon website or on A-Kon TV in Dallas during the con!

Below are some candid shots of the girls from the shoot, I'm doing interview articles on them for my Examiner column, so be sure to check those out!

Last night Planet Zero hosted their monthly Import Car meet, Access Zero 59. Yes, that 59 means that they've been at this for 5 years and counting. This month they were co-promoting the event with the movie Fast Five, the fifth movie of The Fast and the Furious franchise. PZ's owner John Leigh and his staff are choosing 10 cars to be showcased at the Edwards Marq'E theater for the premiere of the movie. So these meets have been getting pretty huge. At the old PZ location, we were filling up the parking lot, the lot next door, down the street, etc. Now we're in a parking lot literally 20x the size of the old one, and its still not enough. People were parking at the Lowe's across the street!

After everything was said and done, we all went to go eat at IHOP. Daniel proceeded to get screwed over by the waitress getting his order wrong, then getting it hella after the rest of us. They know you're a Waffle House man, they know. Hajime almost didn't get his fries, and when he did they looked hella burnt. John got his omelet barely before Daniel did. Oh and Kraker had the pepper shaker top come off on half of his hash browns. I think that IHOP is haunted or something now, last few times have been pretty meh. Oh and it was 50 degrees in our section only, friggin crazy.

So the moral of the story is, park early, don't eat at IHOP, go see Fast Five next week!

Awesome pictures courtesy of Izzy Cervantes.

Music: JFK - Deathstalker(Scorpion's Theme)

My latest article is up for my Examiner.com Video Game Babes column. This time its the classic green latex wearing Orchid from Killer Instinct. I was pleasantly surprised to find some awesome cosplay pictures of the character. Naosa from Cosplay.com especially was very impressive.

So I finally finished my little pet project video with Tito, Leon and Bespa Kumamero. Last month Bespa was one of our musical acts for Anime Matsuri. After the convention, we all took them around town to shop and check out some spots. They wanted Chinese food, but unfortunately we were around the Galleria. There are NO good Chinese restaurants around the Galleria. PF Chang's is NOT Chinese food. =P Oh well, Sprinkles was pretty good, I think its over-hyped, but I'm not really into cupcakes. At the Galleria, we stopped into Borders and I noticed Azumi sitting on the floor fully engrossed in this picture book. I asked her if she liked the pictures in there, and she got all super hyper and excited over this one picture of an old factory. She kept saying, "Do you know... ruins? I like ruins!" I kinda translated it to old run down factories and talked to Tito about it and figured we should hit up Baytown.

Driving down 610, we started seeing some factories, and she went crazy! She climbed all over me and Monkichi trying to get to the windows like a little kid, it was pretty funny. We tried to see if we could drive around the Port of Houston, but that was an obvious no go. We ended up stopping in some of the nearby neighborhoods so we could walk around and take pics from across the lake type thing there. Azumi and Monkichi were pretty excited to see all the old factories and snapped pictures like crazy. Then a small train came by, that was like icing on the cake. Gotta give props to Tito, Bespa seemed to really enjoy themselves. I featured some tracks from their latest album, Spiral Connector. I especially love the title track. You should definitely check it out! Oh and check out my video below!

Music: Bespa Kumamero - "Spiral Connector"

Tournaments and Videos

So lately I've been pretty occupied doing random stuff to get ready for Planet Zero's weekly tournaments and making a video for A-Kon. For those that don't know, Planet Zero holds tournament every week for Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade Edition and Marvel vs Capcom 3. In addition to writing random crap on my blog, I also write articles for Examiner.com about those tournaments and other gaming events. I also write a column about Video Game Babes and the girls who dress up as them. Hey! I can picture you rolling your eyes! Stop that!

My other thing I do is make random videos. Somewhat for fun, but also because I'm very interested in the whole process and would eventually like to do something career wise with it. Below are a couple of videos from my Youtube and Facebook channels I enjoyed making the most. I know they aren't masterpieces by any stretch of the imagination, but I don't care. Anyhow, I'm working on a new project that will hopefully be ready to be shown at A-Kon in Dallas. I have some of my friends involved and a script pretty much 90% done, so wish me luck!

Check out Vampy's newest latest video! And I mean now! Seriously! She like threatened to shoot me next, so click now and don't risk being next!



For those that have no idea who Vampy is or have been living in a cave the past month or so, she is the ultra hot cosplay cutie who loves to rock out and game hardcore. If you don't know, then you ain't ready! Check out her blog and my interview with her while you're at it so you can catch up already!

So last night Planet Zero had their post Anime Matsuri encore party. As you can see from the pics below, it was extremely packed and cramped and wild in there. If you were into cosplay, there was a contest for it; J-fashion, there was a model pose off; gaming, its PZ! All in all it was a pretty hectic and fun night.

But it didn't end there. Me and my friends Vineet, and Jamail went to the Orbit Room in downtown Houston to check out the return of this past Club AM DJ, the beautiful Heavygrinder! Well, to be honest the club was a piece of crap building, but it had some lights... a table... some speakers... yeah, no it sucked. We started off getting shafted with a $15 cover charge to a club that we needed to get patted down for. Vineet told me it was the first time in his life he had ever been patted down. Same for me. This was only moments after we saw a police cruiser zip by with lights flashing. We walk in a see a lonely DJ spinning in the front room, I mean really lonely, there were like 2 people standing around listening to him spin. We got beers($5 a pop!? Really?!) and checked out the back room. There was another DJ spinning to warm up the crowd, but sadly there wasn't much of one. Where was everybody? Apparently, in the back patio either smoking or chilling. Yup, definitely worth the $15.

About a minute later we see an ambulance pull up. The ushers and owners came flooding into the back asking who called for an ambulance. It was pretty funny how they immediately came out back cause there was NOBODY INSIDE! After about 10 minutes everybody realized it was a hoax and were all equally pissed I'm sure. Then Heavygrinder came in! She's been a guest DJ at Club AM for the past 3 years so she's gotten to know the AM staff pretty well. Hugs all around for us and some of her fans. Soon it was showtime. We all grabbed more drinks and headed to the back room for the performance. Everybody out back did too, the room was filled. Nothing but glow in the dark bikinis and heavy bass for the next hour! I will admit I was a little faded at this point, but I do remember Nathan showing up saying we ditched him, Juan(Fallen) and company poppin in and saying how they were regulars at this joint, Vineet going gaga over this asian chick wearing wings, and the Raver chick in the cut up Deadmau5 shirt that really filled it out nicely. IHOP with the PZ crew DJ Tito finally making an appearance after turning Viet for an evening, and then watched Mike U, Daniel(Last Blade) and Marcus(Nytemare Raven) mash on AH3 before calling it a night.

Music: Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus

Rambling about Wrasslin'

So I can't sleep, my roommate Tito convinced me to get Wrestlemania. He's been on a real wrestling kick, playing WWE All Stars, watching the history of WCW and Matt Hardy. Since I used to be a big wrestling fan I got it. Honestly, the last time I paid attention to wrestling was when The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin were at it against the Undertaker and HHH. It's been a while so bear with me here.

Well lo and behold, this years Wrestlemania happens to feature the return of Undertaker vs HHH, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and The Rock as the special guest host. The Rock comes out, and that's pretty cool. Can you smell what the Rock is cooking? I recognize some of these wrestlers, but these others, the heck are they? Random hispanic dude vs Edge was good, dude in a facemask vs Rey Mysterio, meh. Snoop Dog's random appearance with Rowdy Roddy Piper and a midget rapper. Random douchebags vs Kane and Big Show, some random wacko speed walker, and Coco B Ware Jr.? Pretty blah, thank gawd it was quick, Big Show and Kane make their annual cameo. Tito, if you're reading this, stop before you get pissed. Sorry if I'm spoiling it for the rest of ya'll, in case you TiVo'd it and was saving it for the weekend, but I'm delirious and rambling while watching this. =_=

Women's champ Eve is kinda hot, Rock and Austin awesome to see as always. Not sure about the theme song, "Written in the Stars"? I mean its a nice song and all, but man times changed, last time I watched it, the theme song was Limp Bizkit "My Way". For some reason, I really don't like John Cena, I think its because I remember him starting out with that stupid Fitness instructor storyline and wearing neon colored unitards. Out of the newer wrestlers I think RKO is one of my favs. Iunno, he's a total bastard, but I kinda expect the good ones to be. Now that he finished doing that stupid Legend killer crap. CM Punk looks like a minor league hockey player, iunno why, just does. This match isn't bad, stupid knee injury plot slows it down, but not bad.

Wow Mean Gene, holy crap Pee Wee Herman! Hall of Fame time, wow The Butcher is still alive. Sunny actually still looks good, man the Road Warriors! Drew Carey... wtf... Hacksaw Jim Duggan! Oh and of course HBK, he's still wrestling I think. Announcers fight... really? Ugh... Oh man, Booker T makes an appearance! The hell is Jack Swagger? Oh thank gawd, Stone Cold pops up! These intros are taking too long for a crap match... Lawl, stunner, gtfo my ring Swagger! Geezus, finally its over. Man, pop 2 in the ring, Spin a Roonie, LMAO Stunner! Oh not done? You get a Stunner too for your stupid email!

Its funny, cause I think the last Wrestlemania I watched had HHH vs Undertaker, and here they're still going at it. Classic HHH intro, time to play the game! Undertaker's intro has always been one of the coolest, but man Johnny Cash! Nice! Its funny how he's gone from Gravekeeper, to weird satanic cult leader, to a Hell's Angel biker, to an old cowboy. This match was pretty nuts, not as epic as the last time I saw them go at it, but it was pretty good. HHH goes, "Stay down! Why don't you just die? What's wrong with you?" LOL, its the Taker, he's already dead. Didn't expect the ending move.

A Mr. Perfect wannabe and some really annoying lady come out, followed by a couple of cheerleaders? Dunno who this random guy is, but HOLY CRAP TRISH STRATUS! Then Snooki comes out and kills my enthusiasm for the match. Wow, Trish is so hot! Trish pwning the noob chicks. Nice move by random guy. Snooki, wtf was that, gymnastics?! Lawl, well I love Trish, so thats fine.

Ok, I think this is the last match, good cause I'm close to passing out here. John Cena... yeah, I just don't like him. But, I have no friggin idea who the other guy is, so I kinda got to root for Cena. zOMG random guy's theme song is annoying. WTF?! He has a clone? Scratch what I just said, Cena's entrance is worse, a church choir, really? Oh man, I just want both of them to lose now. Let Trish be the champ, hell let Snooki! Well at least the match was much better than watching the intros. Well, that was until they had a count out? Really? Rock comes out and says no! HAH! Rock Bottom on Cena, random guy stays champ, should let Rock be the champ. LMAO! Screw you random guy, spine buster, people's elbow! Awesome, that's Wrestlemania 27 peeps! Man, I hope Wrestlemania 28 is Rock vs Vin Diesel. Then again I think I'm good for another 5-6 years. Time to sleep.

Finally back from MLG Dallas! Got to see some friends that I hadn't seen in a while, and check out the new season for Major League Gaming. Starcraft 2 looks hella fun, but man the no Lan thing really sucks. At least 3 matches I watched had to be replayed or otherwise because of disconnects. The game I refereed, Call of Duty: Black Ops was relatively smaller than MLG had hoped, but the competition was pretty interesting. There were 2 all girl teams, one I think made top 16 so they started getting hella press. The 4th place team were like all young kids, you could barely see the smallest one behind the monitor. His teammate was just as young, and if you follow my twitter, that's the one I gave a techincal foul to, lol!

Halo was obviously the crown jewel and had like 170 something teams entered. All in all it was fun and interesting, hopefully next event will be bigger. But man, the venue was crazy. They have these metal statues made up showing some Oregon Trail scene or something in the front with cowboys leading bulls over a river. Next to it was some old cemetery that's treated like a park?!

Saturday, I got to meet up with James, Raymond, Natalie and Thu. Ate at someplace called BJ's and had some kinda beer cider thing called a "Snakebite". It was pretty good food too, definitely better than the McDonald's I was forced to eat most of the time there.

Coming back was a stupid adventure. My friend James picked me up from the hotel to the airport, but it was already raining. Traffic wasn't too bad, so we get to DFW with plenty of time. Check in was normal, screw checking in bags, stupid airlines always seem to lose stuff. Security thought my boob mousepad was some kinda liquid bomb and kept checking it over and over again.

It was pretty funny cause it was the old guys insisting to check it, and the asian chick who was scanning it looked hella embarrassed, lol! So I finally get done with that crap and wait for boarding. That was supposed to be at 8:45am. I take a little nap cause I do that whole closing your eyes, but I can hear whats going on around me thing. But I don't hear anything announced at all, just the stupid airline tv prog that's been looping for an hour...

I finally open my eyes and see that it has been an hour! It's friggin 9:45am and nothing has happened! I look up and see a sign saying its been delayed for 35min, great. So finally we board, on the smallest airplane in the world... I chose the very back seat cause I like to get in first and goto sleep. Well that didn't happen, some off duty stewardess sat next to me. I know it use to be a fantasy to be with a stewardess or something, but that definitely isn't viable nowadays. I have yet to see a hot stewardess anytime I've flown. Well her and the active working stewardess kept yapping, THE ENTIRE FLIGHT! Ugh, remember how I said I close my eyes but can still hear? Yeah, that ability now sucks! I was too lazy to get my headphones out, so I just dealt with it. Then the turbulence hit, oh man did it ever. I seriously thought we were gonna crash, so did the redneck in front of me. "Oh hell, we all gonna die! This is ya'lls fault!" This went on during the entire 15 minutes of turbulence. Outside was nothing but fog and clouds and rain. Literally, the plane felt like a Tetris piece, we went up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, A, B, select, start. Then magically, the sun was out and the turbulence stopped. Redneck proceeded to rant the rest of the flight, wanting a refund and crap, good luck with that. So then we land, wrong terminal, I call up Zen to pick me up, who apparently waited at Jack in the Box for almost 2 hrs, sorry dude. I went to the bank so me and Tito don't get evicted, and then passed out for 6 hrs. And that's my weekend.

Music: ACDC - Highway to Hell

It's now 3:30am, this is pretty normal awake time for me sadly, but I really was trying to sleep somewhat normally. Oh well, tomorrow I'm flying out to Dallas for MLG Dallas. Should be fun, or at least I hope so, Call of Duty is not really my thing. I still haven't fully finalized a ride to the airport either, this is turning into some kinda Mission Impossible crap.

I finally got around to watching High School of the Dead. A bunch of my friends are crazy over it, and Vampy cosplaying at Saeko finally pushed me to take the plunge. Not surprisingly, it was just about what I expected, fun, but very cliche. Iunno, I think that's sort of the way the new anime series have been lately. A lot of T&A, rehashed plots, harem scenario, etc. Don't get me wrong, its still enjoyable, just nothing award winning. Saeko is pretty awesome, but also reminds me of Love Hina's Motoko Aoyama, and Kaori Kanzaki from To Aru Majutsu no Index. The series taught me that in order to survive a zombie apocalypse, you better be good with a gun or a bat, cause everybody else just plain got pwned. Oh and if you're a girl, apparently you have to have D cups or bigger, every other girl seemed to get pwned too. Just sayin'

Music: Metallica - I Disappear

So over the past 2 weeks now, I've been having trouble mailing a package to Canada. Its nothing illegal or anything, its just old Nintendo games. But for some reason its extremely difficult for USPS to mail it up there. Never mind the fact that its like over 2x more to send it to a "country" that's closer to me than New York or California!

Well whatever, I'm going to relax by watching Tron Legacy. I've always been a big fan of the original Tron movie and was geeking pretty hard over the sequel. I liked how they tried to throw as many tidbits as they could in homage to the original, like having Dillinger's son, and some of the same lines. Olivia Wilde is so hot, and gotta love Daft Punk!

So my Wii broke. No, thats not a clever pun for something dirty. My stupid friggin Nintendo Wii broke down and costs too much to repair. So all my saved games, downloaded stuff, etc, gone, ugh! I'm currently in the process of selling off all of my Wii crap, but man, so pissed about that. On the brightside, the new MLG season is about to kick off next weekend! It'll be fun to see friends I haven't seen in a week =P

So last night I'm coming home from PZ. I was already pretty tired and sorta dozing off at the wheel waiting at the light. All of a sudden this dude comes crashing on top on my windshield! I nearly freaked out and drove off, but it turned out to be a homeless guess with a squeegee. Dude was black and dressed in all black, how the heck are people supposed to avoid hitting them when they do this crap, like they're some kinda night time vigilante windshield cleaning ninjas or something. Worse part was I just cleaned my windshield earlier in the day, even worse than that, HE MADE MY WINDSHIELD DIRTIER THAN IT WAS BEFORE!!! Argh, stupid windshield ninja is gonna get it next time I find him!


Music: Drowning Pool - Bodies

So last night, I went to go see Sucker Punch with John and Deneice from PZ/AM, Leon and Alin. Honestly, I never heard of the movie until a few days ago. I really didn't expect much from it, and the manager of the theater even said he didn't really like the movie. So immediately I'm praying this isn't going to be another epic fail movie that John likes to choose like Stick It, or Beowolf. I can honestly say though, that the movie wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It was made by the same guy who did 300, and I still watch that movie occasionally. The story can be a bit confusing, the action scenes are totally anime inspired, Blood comes to mind. Only actresses I really knew was Jamie Chung, and Carla Gugino. But the rest of the cast was fine. The only real issue I had was that I don't know if it really needs to be seen on the IMAX screen.

Music: Martika - Toy Soldiers

Somehow I always forget I have one of these sites. I remember right around Showdown. Well this year's event is already over with. You can read the recap from my Examiner column here

This years event was pretty good, once again we worked with Planet Zero and Anime Matsuri and managed to pull it off despite all the obstacles thrown at us. As for myself, still going on strong with Texas Showdown Championships, making videos for my Youtube Channel, writing articles for Examiner.com on Arcade Games, Hot Toys, and Video Game Babes.

Next week I start back up being a referee for Major League Gaming, sadly Tekken 6 was taken off the roster, so now I'm a ref for Call of Duty. If you're a fan of the game, or just plain competitive, you should check it out.